Monster
by DragonyPhoenix
Summary: Spike creates a copy so he can die in his beloved's arms. What happens to Xander afterwards?  Sequel to FrankenSpike's Creation: spikecentric dot livejournal dot com slash 103339.html
1. Chapter 1

When he woke, it was from an unimaginably deep sleep, but Spike was in his arms and that was all that mattered. Any memories that might have marred the moment, memories of life, of their love, of his death, fell away as lips came together in a kiss. As he lost himself in Spike, his arm – programmed to act automatically for that very purpose – swept up, stabbing a stake through Spike's heart. Xander barely noticed the clatter of the stake as he fell to his knees and grabbed at the scattering ash, which escaped his clutches and drifted to the floor. He was still too stunned to think when metallic things, about the size of mice, started scrambling across the floor, rushing this way and that for a few minutes before retreating back into the walls. They took Spike's ashes with them.

The sound of his voice echoed back at him until there was nothing but that eternity, full of screams.


	2. Chapter 2

He didn't know how long he'd been screaming before he heard Spike's voice. Brushing tears away, clearing his eyes, he glanced around, looking for Spike. The voice seemed to come from everywhere. "Time for your blood. Come on, you bloody idiot, you'll never bring Xander back if you starve yourself to death. Drink already."

Xander took three stumbling steps. "Spike?"

There was a mug of blood on the counter, across the far side of the room. For the first time, Xander looked around. The walls seemed to be some sort of metallic mesh; they looked like fabric but were solid to his touch. In the middle of the room was a workbench, full of wires, tiny crystals, and tools; he would have been disconcerted that he didn't recognize most of the tools – although apparently a screwdriver still came in handy – if he weren't already freaking. The floor seemed to be one large sheet of metal although it was warm to his naked feet. He was wearing normal clothes, a baggy shirt and sweats, but the room seemed like something out of a science fiction movie.

Walking over to the counter, he sniffed at the drink. Yech, it was blood all right, and in Giles' old Kiss the Librarian mug. "Spike?" he called out again. There was still no answer. As he turned to scan the room once more, his arm brushed against the mug, knocking it to the floor where it smashed into a dozen pieces, splashing the blood into a puddle. The mice-like things came out again, but before Xander could even think to grab the shards, the mug and cup were gone. He tried to track the mice, but their holes vanished back into mesh walls.

Letting out a sob, Xander fell against the counter. Spike had come back before, even after his ashes had been scattered to the winds, but losing the ashes felt like he'd lost Spike forever. No, he couldn't think that way, not if he was going to get Spike back. He had to try something. "Computer?" he called out quietly, unsure he'd get a response.

"Waiting." The voice was female: maternal and comforting.

"Where's Spike?" OK, maybe not the smartest question, but he had to start somewhere.

"Unknown."

"What do you mean, unknown?" Xander started pacing the room.

"Sensors indicate no vampires in residence."

"Where'd he go?"

"This unit has no means of tracking outside the laboratory." The voice, which was starting to get on Xander's nerves, drew out the word: lab-or-a-tory.

"When did he leave?"

"Four-point-seven-five hours ago."

Xander looked around the room. There was no way out. "How? There aren't any doors."

"Spike did not use any exit. Would you care to see subject's departure?"

Xander glanced up at that, even though the voice didn't come from the ceiling or anywhere in particular. "Yeah."

In the middle of the room, to the right of the workbench, in what had been empty space only a moment before, Xander saw himself and Spike, standing with arms wrapped around each other. As they kissed, Xander struck a stake through Spike's heart. Dust settled to the floor; Xander dropped down to catch it.

"Shut it off. Shut it off. Shut it off." The figure vanished. "What the hell?" Xander walked to the spot where he'd seen the images. Why would I kill Spike? He let his thoughts drift backward, trying to work out what had led up to the attack.

He fell against the table as it hit him. "I died?"


	3. Chapter 3

They'd been fighting the First's minions. That creepy reverend-guy had been going on about taking Xander's eye out but then, with a flash of his knife, had cut into Xander's gut instead. Spike had come out of nowhere, tackling the reverend to the ground and dragging Xander outside. Spike had been about to Turn Xander...

"You ready, pet?" Spike's eyes had been full of tears.

"Of course," Xander had said. "You're not getting rid of me this easily." It hadn't sounded that good in real-life. The words had been gasped out over grunts of pain.

Spike had kissed him once, shifting to vamp-face mid-kiss. His lips were trailing toward Xander's neck when suddenly he wasn't there. Willow stood at Xander's feet, her witchy mojo forcing Spike back. Xander could see him struggling against her shield.

"Willow, please," Xander had tried to say, but his words weren't even whispers.

"Witch," Spike was shouting. "He wants this."

"No," Willow screamed, her mojo shoving Spike further back until Xander couldn't see him anymore. It was all so far away; it was so tough to keep his eyes open.


	4. Chapter 4

"Shit." Yelling toward the ceiling, Xander called out, "Computer, what am I?"

"You are a construct created out of human, cyborg, and demon parts."

He couldn't ask why he'd killed Spike; he couldn't even think about that yet. "Why'd he make me?"

"Unknown."

"What'd he say about me then? Show me that last entry."

Spike and Willow stood two feet away, Willow radiating fury. "You can't do this. It's obscene! You claim to have loved him yet want to replace him with this... this... **thing**!"

"You know NOTHING! Was nice to see you, Red, but I think it's time you left."

Wincing at the pain on Spike's face, Xander automatically reached out to him, taking the necessary step that put him right there, just next to Spike. His hand hit solid flesh. "What the hell? Spike?" Willow was hugging Spike, the two of them acting as if Xander weren't there. He poked a finger at Willow. It wasn't an image, but like Spike she didn't seem to notice him. "Computer? Freeze this thing." Willow and Spike stopped moving, trapped there mid-hug. Xander walked around the two of them. Spike actually did look trapped, as if he were merely enduring Willow's hug, not that she looked much happier.

"Computer, how come I can touch them?"

"Tactically enhanced projections, invented by a Japanese conglomerate in..."

"Stop." Xander stepped closer to Spike, taking in the tightness of his jaw, the stiffness of his shoulders. Unable to do anything about that pain, he stepped away and told the computer to continue the projection.

"Take care love. Bye," Spike was saying. Willow vanished and Spike seemed to be walking down through the floor. Xander was about to ask about that when a set of stairs built themselves out of the floor, going up to a door that hadn't been there a moment before. Spike was walking down those stairs. "Won't be long now," he was muttering.

When Spike walked past him, Xander's hand reached out, fingers not quite touching. This wasn't Spike, but he couldn't help turning to follow. He jumped when he saw himself. "Freeze it." Xander walked around the two of them. Spike had his, had the other Xander's... but it was him, wasn't it. Spike had its arm open; it, he, was full of greenish muscle and more of those crystals that he'd seen on the table. "Continue," Xander whispered.

Spike was taking one of those strange tools off the table and applying it to a couple of the crystals in Xander's arm. "Just a couple more circuits to get right, and you'll be ready to go. This bit with the stake has to be automatic, separate from any of your cognitive functions." As Spike looked up, staring at the creature he was working on, a warm look flashed across his face only to be replaced by a look of clinical detachment. "You, pet, are going to send me back to my beloved."

Xander, watching from the sidelines, couldn't stand it. Spike had set this up? Spike had set him up? Letting out a scream of rage, he punched at Spike. The hit connected, but it was something like hitting a padded punching bag, only more so. The image of Spike didn't respond, and Xander realized nothing he could do would hurt Spike. "You bastard," Xander shouted. "You wanted to die in my arms so you left me here with HIS memories?" You couldn't have thought that through?"

Xander ran up the stairs. The next room was more of the same. Metal, metal everywhere with refrigeration units, clear so the demon parts were visible, off to one side. "Computer, get me the hell out of here." A door opened, and Xander ran through it.

It was night, and he was in an industrial park, not unlike the bad parts of Sunnydale. When the screams started, Xander tried to ignore them, thinking let someone else take care of this shit, but saving the world was too ingrained. Running into the alley, he found two vampires playing cat-and-mouse with a young couple. "Let them go."

"Well, well, well." The taller vamp, dark-haired, tall and thin enough that he reminded Xander of Jesse, put his hands through his belt, doing a cock of the walk strut. "Somebody's a bit too big for his britches."

Xander's punch sent him flying down the alleyway. "Run," he yelled to the couple as the second vamp came at him. Taking three steps forward, Xander wrapped his hand around the vamp's face, smashing his head into the wall. The vamp turned to dust under Xander's fingers. As the first vamp, the one Xander had tossed down the alley, took one look and ran off, Xander, staring at his hand, asked, "What the hell did he make me into?"

The computer's words rang in his head: a construct created out of human, cyborg, and demon parts. Xander's legs gave out and he fell to the ground


	5. Chapter 5

Xander stumbled around the city, not even sure where he was, so lost in thought that he didn't see the demon until it was too late. The large scaled dog-like animal was called a Varenthi demon, that much he remembered from Giles' books, and those barbs at the end if it's tail? Full of poison. It took him a few minutes to kill the creature, and even that was because he'd never taken on anything like this before, not by himself. But he'd gotten nailed by the barbs. They'd bit into his skin, and he'd had to tear them out. The poison didn't make him sick, not even a little bit.

The next night Xander found another vamp, this one a knife fighter. It was as easy to kill as the first two had been. Taking its knife, Xander struck right through his own heart. "Oh shit." It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. Tossing the knife aside, Xander leaned against the brick of the alley. The pain stopped. Xander's jaw dropped as the cut healed itself. He spent the rest of the night trying to get himself killed any way he could: taking on a half-dozen Fyarl, tossing himself off the highest building he could find, and walking out to the middle of the lake. Xander was too heavy to float but didn't need to breathe. Six nights later, without a scratch on his body even after countless fights, he realized he hadn't eaten since he'd woken up. Apparently starving himself to death wasn't going to work either.

Xander found a vampire, blonde and cocky. The accent was wrong, South American instead of British, but the vamp brought the rage to the surface just the same. Xander spent an entire night beating him to death before watching him burn as the sunlight hit him. He wanted, almost needed, to do it again. "Is this what you wanted for me?" he shouted as he smashed his hand through a wall. "To spend fucking eternity killing you?"

Xander kept punching until the wall crumbled to rubble. "Why are you punishing me?" He's the one who died."


	6. Chapter 6

There was only one thing Xander could do, not that he wanted to, not when he could hear Willow's words every time he thought of it: "It's obscene! You claim to have loved him yet want to replace him with this... this... **thing**!" He would have liked to go out of the world thinking there was one person who thought well of him, but his options were limited, as in down to one.

He'd been avoiding the Slayers. That had been Xander's life, not his, but there was no one else. There were three of them, chatting away as they walked past the tombstones, all too young to be out on their own. "Things have been too quiet, don'cha think?"

"I'm liking the chance to chill." The middle one stretched her arms up, getting her whole body into it, leaving herself open to an attack.

Xander stepped out of the darkness. These kids couldn't help him, but whoever was leading them had obviously sensed something. She wasn't going to come out while Xander was hidden.

He didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. As the three Slayers shifted from casual good-times chat to fighting poses, she stepped out from behind a crypt. "Xander?"

Faith? Her hair was half-gray, but she still moved with that fighter's grace. "Sort of," he replied.

"Looking pretty good for a dead guy."

The three girls twitched. Xander's eyes were on Faith, but he caught them out of his periphery. Unsure if they were going to be fighting or not, they were shifting about. Faith didn't move, standing tall and straight but ready for anything.

A joke flashed across his mind, a comment about not being the only one who'd died, but he really wasn't that guy anymore. Not that he'd ever been. "Tell Buf..." He paused, taking in Faith's wrinkles. "Is Buffy still, um, around?"

Faith didn't move, but he could sense her amusement. "She's still kicking."

"Tell her I want to see her. Tell her she owes me."

"Like she's going to come at your baying?" Faith coughed and flashed a glance at the Slayer who'd spoken. The girl hung her head.

Xander let Faith see him assessing the girls, cataloging their strengths and weaknesses.

"How many of us do you think you could take?" Faith asked.

"So far, I'm pretty indestructible." When Faith's eyes narrowed, Xander added, "I just want Buffy."

"I'll pass the message along." Faith, looking at the Slayers, nodded off toward the right and started walking away. They trailed after, glancing back at Xander as if still trying to decide if he were a threat or not.

Xander stopped killing demons. After his rampages, they'd gone to ground, but mostly he needed to be in control of himself when he talked to Buffy. He continued to patrol though, walking through the badder parts of town, alone except for the rats he could hear in the sewers. It was four nights later before he saw Faith, standing in the middle of the street, waiting for him. There was an ax casually slung across one shoulder, but something about the way she was carrying it let him know she didn't think it'd be much use in a fight, not against him. She didn't speak, not that he'd expected her to, but turned and walked away. He followed. As Faith stepped into the warehouse, Xander could hear only one other heartbeat inside and smiled at that. Buffy had never been big on unnecessary backup.

Faith had vanished into the shadows; Xander could still hear her but wasn't sure if she knew that. Buffy was standing in the center of an empty room. After seeing how old both Willow and Faith had gotten, he should have been prepared, but Xander, shocked by the gray in Buffy's hair, covered it up by speaking first. "Guess I'm a bit low on your list of priorities now that I'm dead."

"You aren't Xander."

"We first met outside the library. You'd dropped your bag, scattering stuff everywhere, and I asked if I could have you. Later, when I handed the stake back, you said it was for self-defense, that everybody had them in L.A."

He heard Willow's voice. "Just because you have his memories..." Willow materialized out of nowhere, her pale skin translucent with age. It was less of a shock, seeing Willow old. Partly because he'd seen that image of her back in Spike's lab, but mostly because they'd been friends forever, and he'd always known they'd still hang once she was old, although he'd rather figured on them getting old together. Buffy on the other hand had always had that superhero mojo going for her; Xander had never pictured her as old.

"You want memories?" Xander asked. "The yellow crayon; when Jesse jumped off the swing in second grade, cutting his head; the 'I hate Cordelia club'..."

"Stop." Willow interrupted him with a shout. "I've seen Spike's notes. He gave you Xander's memories, but you don't have his soul. You aren't him."

"Kinda figured that out on my own."

Buffy didn't move, but Xander could sense her resolve. He wasn't Xander, and she wasn't going to give him a free pass. Working out why she'd showed, he thought about the demons he'd killed and how he'd suggested to Faith that he could take out the Slayers. Buffy was there to save the world, just like always. She wanted to know if he was friend or foe. Time to nip both those thoughts in the bud. "I want you to kill me."

At Willow's gasp of shocked surprise, Xander turned on her. "Oh don't give me that. I heard what you think of me: an obscenity, a thing. Isn't' that right?"

Willow seemed to deflate, but Buffy, mon-focused, said, "You've been killing demons."

Shit, she was still on that track. "I was created to kill my lover, but he forgot to rig it so I'd die afterward."

"Oh God," Willow whispered, finally realizing how desperate he'd become. She always could read him better than anyone.

Buffy didn't get it yet. "You could join us. Maybe there's a reason you're here."

Xander gave her a feral smile, half-growl and half-sneer. "Did you know I've been torturing demons? Not killing them clean: torturing them. I flayed one alive, cutting off its skin bit by bit, dragging out the agony for days. Then I poured salt on the wounds. If effects demons the same way it would a human." With a shrug he added, "Who knew?"

"Xander, this isn't you." He felt bad about Willow's tears, but didn't let it show.

"Have you killed a human?" Buffy's interest sounded almost clinical.

"Not yet, but sooner or later I'll run out of demons. Sometime after that, I'll run out of Slayers."

"Why are you doing this?" Willow yelled.

"Because Spike is dead, and I can't torture him, or I can't love him, or something."

Willow's face took on that earnest expression, the one she'd wear when she found something to fix. "But you can come back from this. I did. You helped me then; I can help, I mean we can help you now."

"You weren't a throw-away copy."

When neither woman replied, Xander added, "Look, all I've got is this rage, just bubbling up in me. I tried killing demons. I mean, it's like if I did a bunch of killing that would release it or something, but it only gets worse. This rage keeps binding me tighter and tighter." Willow looked worried but still didn't speak. "Don't you see? Spike didn't recreate Xander. He made another Adam. And if you don't stop me, I'll turn the Earth into a wasteland."

"You have a soul." Willow threw the words at Xander. "Did you know that?"

He closed his eyes: but not Xander's soul, not a soul anyone wanted. "Then let it rest."

"I can't," Willow wailed.

Buffy reached a hand out toward Xander, just slightly, but it was enough to get his attention. "You guys brought me back from Heaven; I got over that. Willow almost destroyed the world; she got over that. What makes you so different?"

"It is different," Xander snarled. "At least Tara loved Willow. I'm just a discarded piece of junk."

Buffy didn't look impressed.

"You owe me," Xander added.

"How could we possibly owe you?" Buffy drawled.

"Xander and Spike had it worked out. Xander was wearing an amulet. He would have kept his soul when Spike Turned him, but you kept Spike away. That I'm here at all, that I'm suffering in this hell, it's all your fault."

Faith stepped out of the shadows. "If he wants to die that much, I'm voting we help him."

"No," Willow shouted.

"Why not?" Faith asked. "I mean, yeah, he looks like Xander, but he isn't. You explained that real clear."

"I," Willow stuttered. "He has a soul, and we don't kill things with souls." She added, in an almost mutter, "Not if they aren't evil."

"Yeah?" Faith said. "And you didn't hear him threatening to go medieval on our asses? You know he's got the chops to do it. If he's gonna let us take him out the easy way, I say go for it."

Buffy frowned. "That killing spree stuff? That was the pain talking."

"Yeah," Willow said. "Cause pain-talking makes you say things you wouldn't do. Never, never, ever do."

For the first time since Spike had brought him back, Xander had someone on his side. Deciding to give her some support, he said, "You want me to go kill some innocents? I will, if that's what it takes."

Tossing her ax to Buffy, Faith stepped into a fighting stance. "Take me out. That oughta prove you're serious."

Xander took two swings at her, one right after the other. Faith blocked them. His roundhouse kick was too slow, and he stumbled back a few steps as she punched him in the gut. Crouching down low, he unwound as he rose. His punch sent her smashing into the wall.

Brushing the dust away, Faith asked, "That all you got? 'Cause my grandma hit harder than that. Gotta say, I don't think you're serious."

Closing his eyes, Xander let himself slump forward. He couldn't bring himself to kill a Slayer: not now, not ever. And he had no other way to get himself killed. Shit.

"A year and a day." Xander opened his eyes to Willow's words.

"Huh?" Buffy asked.

Speaking to Xander, Willow added, "Give us a year and a day. We'll get you help, and you actually have to try to come back to this world, mister." Pausing, she gave him a glare before adding, "If you still want to die after that, then we'll kill you."

Almost afraid to hope, Xander asked, "You swear you'll do it? Swear on your love for Tara?" Kennedy wasn't going to like that – assuming she and Willow were still together after all those years – but that wasn't Xander's problem. He knew that would still be the most sacred oath Willow could make.

Willow nodded and then, seeing that wasn't enough, added a yes.

Biting his lip, Xander agreed. If that was the only way, he could get through a year and a day. Willow, racing across the room, pulled him into a hug. Feeling himself give way to her, Xander hugged her back.


End file.
